


purple carnation

by reminiscence



Category: Saki (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Gen, Introspection, Oneshot, ffn challenge: diversity writing challenge, ffn challenge: random generator, rambling thoughts, word count: 1501-2500
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-07
Updated: 2017-07-07
Packaged: 2018-11-29 00:08:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11429082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reminiscence/pseuds/reminiscence
Summary: Thinking about her opponents in the Nationals final has Saki's thoughts swirling around... but of course the thoughts go somewhere.





	purple carnation

If it wasn’t for Achiga’s Takakamo Shizuno, Saki thought she’d have very little trouble with Oohoshi Awai.

The starting five or six tiles away from tenpai was frustrating, certainly, but Awai’s hands were slowed by her thirst for the ura-dora. That gave her time. That gave all her opponents time.

And against the one who won off tiles from the dead wall, that was time Awai handed over on a silver platter.

Saki could imagine it. A double riichi from Awai while the rest of them had five or six shanten hands. Then the game went on, Awai discarding without a care and the rest of them forming their hands. Saki’s hand would have at least one triplet in it, naturally. Or maybe just a pinfu. It would be a little different, anyway, because she had to make sure she had a yaku in her hand.

That was the only way she’d be able to steal the kan from under Awai’s very nose.

Saki could imagine it. Awai playing her closed kan and then discarding the draw.

Saki’s tenpai hand waiting for that very same discarded draw.

How many times could she pull it off before Awai held back her kan, she wondered? It probably wasn’t that important. She could always call a kan herself to pull the tile from the wall. Awai’s ability didn’t prevent kans from other players. Not at all.

The problem was Shizuno. And her ability to control the deep mountains.

Koromo said she’d never made it to the final tile. Once they hit the deeper parts of the wall, Shizuno could have started with a hand ten tiles away from tenpai and still win before the final tile.

Saki had watched how Shizuno transformed her hand multiple times before getting the hit she needed. Not stopping because all her winning tiles were gone before she could grasp them. Not stopping because she could get a cheaper win that wouldn’t get her team through to the semi-finals. And it wasn’t like Saki herself, taking a tanyao hand and turning it into a baiman, or taking a haneman and turning it into a kazoe yakuman. She’d downgraded the haneman instead, risking furiten for a direct hit.

Her persistence had paid off, anyway. She’d gotten the direct hit. But nothing about that exchange had shown any deeper power, any deeper control. Until now. Because getting into tenpai was rare enough. Even the best players didn’t always manage it. Nodoka would have the statistics of that. But to transform a hand like that, beyond changing waits and changing yaku. That hand had no potential of becoming a chiitoi until Shizuno had made it one. And if Kentani had discareded the one-pin in the same turn as Senriyama, she’d have no doubt transformed it into something else.

That reminded her of Ikeda Kana, who’d given up a single-wait suuankou tsumo – which would have been a double yakuman if the rules allowed it, but still not enough to drag her team to the top. Kana who’d laughingly (and a little tearily) admitted she’d been hoping for enough draws to get her to the point where a yakuman _could_ get them there. But Saki had swooped in instead, with the direct hit yakuman she’d needed.

It wouldn’t have been possible if Koromo hadn’t decided to believe in her, because she’d been well aware she was discarding a risky tile when she did. The one-pin too, funnily enough. What a coincidence. Or not.

Even if mahjong _was_ supposed to be a game full of coincidences.

It wasn’t. Saki knew it wasn’t. There were too many people with too many powers for it to be entirely a game of chance. Though Nodoka would still argue otherwise, to an extent. Still, there were powers. There were specialties. And there were ways to work around them, or with them.

Like Kajiki Yumi’s chankan at the Nagano qualifiers. Like how Suehara Kyouko had interrupted her kans after spotting her tell, and how she’d been able to fight back. And now she could exploit a similar weakness with Oohoshi Awai… if Achiga didn’t cut in.

Because that power over the deeper parts of the wall was one thing when confined to the deep wall, but another when it spread like a shockwave. Stopping Awai’s double riichis was impossible from the depths of the deep wall. Her hands had reached out from there. Just like how Koromo’s ability to stop them from reaching tenpai until the final tile was her hands reaching out from under the the moon’s reflection in the water…

Can the flower bloom against the master of the deep mountains, Koromo had asked.

Saki didn’t know. It wouldn’t be as easy to address as Oohoshi Awai’s double riichi… Or maybe it was because that was her sister’s school that she’d obsessed and obsessed until she found a way.

She might not have even considered Achiga if it hadn’t been for her visitors.

She might not have considered Rinkai Girls if she hadn’t been bested in the semi-finals. If their qualification into the final round hadn’t hinged on how many ura-doras each hand had drawn. They’d come far too close, in that match. Himematsu could have been the ones to qualify, instead, and it’d have been due to neither of their moves but Nelly Virsaladze dominating the final rounds of that match.

All those people she’d stopped looking at, because she’d been so focused on her sister, and her sister’s school.

She wasn’t even playing against her sister. That would be Yuuki’s place, Yuuki’s role. They wouldn’t be facing each other directly. Maybe it wouldn’t mean anything, like that, if they weren’t sitting across from each other –

But the idea of facing each other face to face still terrified her.

Even if there was still the individual nationals, where they could conceivably play face to face.

But before that was the Nationals. Before that was Yuuki’s game against her sister (and two other players; she mustn’t make the mistake of forgetting the other players at the table after being defeated like she’d been). And her match against Awai and Shizuno and Nelly…

And she still needed a way to stop Nelly, as well. Once she got started. Three big hands in a match. Which left two options: pad the points or stop her.

Well, padding the points had worked for Eguchi Sera’s individual total, but they’d lost the points race in the end. It was too risky a move, unless they could gain such an overwhelming advantage that even three direct hit yakumans wouldn’t topple them. It was possible. Oohoshi’s defence was weak once she’d declared a riichi. Nelly only paid three big hands in a match – unless that was just her confidence, and she could play more if she chose.

Too many factors, and maybe she was looking down on her sister’s school’s fifth player while she was at it. Or looking too much at her.

Because she still couldn’t think of any way to counter Achiga’s fifth, at all.

Koromo was back. Koromo and Kunihiro Hajime as well, as well as Sawamura Tomoki. The other two were probably around as well. Maybe with Yuuki and Nodoka. They’d played Achiga, at least. And Koromo’s point gains in the regional qualifiers… She could substitute for Nelly, perhaps, as well. She’d found the hole in Awai’s strategy on her own. She’d found the hole in her own strategy that Kyouko had managed to exploit, as well. And now she knew her own tell, so she could use that as a weapon, or watch it so it didn’t stab her in the back again.

Actually, she’s kind of surprised no-one’s picked it up before Kyouko. She can understand Nodoka missing such a thing, but the president’s had a sharp eye on her. Or Kajiki Yumi… or maybe she’d cut in with the chankan too quickly, there. She admitted regretting it, after, when the flow shifted towards Koromo instead.

Though Saki is sure that would have happened eventually, regardless of the chankan. Koromo hadn’t needed an opening. She’d just been waiting for one because it was more interesting that way. More fun. And watching the replays, it certainly seemed that way from the outside.

Still, it had shaken her when she was there.

And it was the same with Nelly. Nelly who’d jumped into action in the last three hands like she’d planned it – and she probably had. But where was her limit? Arrogance could be defeated but only if she could set the stage. And arrogance wasn’t what she should depend on to win.

Perhaps she was over-thinking.

No, she _was_ overthinking. It was obvious, really, with how she silently chased her thoughts and stared at the book she wasn’t reading. And how Koromo wasn’t bored watching her, she had no idea.

Koromo was probably waiting for her to get her head out of the clouds, even if her advice wasn’t always sound. Yuuki was a case in point there. Even her sister couldn’t finish a match in East 1.

A moot point, really, since she hardly ever won East 1 nowadays. But the point still stood that even the Inter-High Champion Miyanga Teru couldn’t run a team of five players dry of their 100,000 points in her first dealership.

Running them dry in the second dealership wasn’t a hundred percent guaranteed either. Nor was her coming out on top. Kainou-pro had defeated her. But that was just one person…

That wasn’t true, either. When they’d played as a family… Well, Saki stopped winning a long time ago, and before that was the long struggle of crawling past their mother to first place. And then they stopped playing entirely… And they’d changed since then: Saki, and Teru as well. Had their mother’s style changed too? Or was it stagnating, waiting for a challenge that hadn’t come. Would it even ever come, with how splintered their family now was?

Koromo hummed as she caught her gaze, and Saki scrambled for her thoughts. She’d gone all over, ultimately, trying to work out a strategy for the finals and accomplished nothing in it all. She’d played many games since joining Kiyosumi’s mahjong club, and found many weaknesses she hadn’t known she had (or hadn’t realised could be exploited, in some of those cases). Played so many games… And yet they didn’t hold all the answers. Not this time. Perhaps not ever, and that was why she had to continue playing: more and more games, against more and more people, and that included Oohoshi Awai as more than just a stepping stone to her sister (because that was disrespectful; Awai had a powerful reputation and here Saki was, disrespecting her before they’d even sat at the table together). That included Nodoka’s friend from Achiga too (and another thing she’d forgotten, and remembered…). And Nelly who’d bested her once already… And maybe Suehara Kyouko would be willing to lend a hand as well. She could try selling it as practice before the match for fifth tomorrow, if nothing else.

Koromo, Nodoka, Kyouko and Saki. That would be an interesting table, Saki thought, and maybe she could come up with something from it as well… Or at least settle her thoughts. Because sitting at the table thinking hadn’t really gotten her anywhere…

No, that wasn’t really true. She did dig herself into her hole and back out, after all. A rather circumferential way to accomplish nothing, really. But now… ‘Will you play with me, Koromo-chan?’

Koromo grinned, and the shadow behind her wasn’t nearly as frightening nowadays, even if it was no less powerful than the first time they’d met. ‘Finally,’ she said. ‘Who else?’

‘I was thinking Nodoka… and do you know Suehara Kyouko?’

Koromo hummed. ‘The Suehara who was giving Saki so much trouble.’

‘Ah.’ She was blushing. ‘Yes, that one.’

‘But Saki worked it out in the end.’ Koromo looked curious.

‘I was hoping for her help, actually. And yours. And Nodoka’s too. For the final match in particular, but also…’ To play more mahjong. To get stronger, more experienced… And to know more about herself as well. And hopefully to stop falling into these traps of self-doubt, or arrogance, or whatever other names she could give them. ‘I mean, I’m sure the president is working hard too, but…’

Koromo considered, then shrugged. ‘Koromo always plays as Koromo, no matter who she’s playing against. Saki should play as Saki too. If the deep wall’s the problem, end the match first.’

Yes, she did have speed on her side. But Koromo herself knew it wasn’t always possible. Her haiteis would have been far rarer if it had been. ‘I couldn’t do haiteis but I still beat Achiga,’ Koromo added.

Saki hadn’t been able to do as many kans as normal but she’d still defeated Kyouko. But to run out a team while aiming for a plus/minus zero score… When she had run out a team in the Nagano qualifiers, she’d done it with a relentless attack but that wasn’t really her. Never had been, really. Even if she hadn’t gone back to aiming for plus/minus zero until… when was it? The first round of the individual tournament, of course. The way the other players had looked at her. Apprehensive. Afraid.  And then she’d had to sacrifice that again, because of how Nodoka had scolded her, and reminded her of the promise they’d shared. So she’d turned away. And then come back again, in a match where she’d been the one to cower and the president had been amazed when she’d mentioned that, because no-one on the outside had seen it at all.

And she’d been aiming for the top in the semi-finals and gotten second place. Not the top. Not the plus/minus zero score that could have allowed her to accept it happily, as well. ‘The way I played when you’d pulled away from all of us…’ Saki mused. ‘I haven’t played like that again.’

Koromo laughed. ‘Then your pride should be all ready after losing to that Nelly girl, right?’

Maybe Koromo was right. No… she _was_ right. It was a matter of her pride, wasn’t it? Her pride that wouldn’t allow her to lose to Nelly again, who wouldn’t allow herself to be bested by her sister’s school, who’d overcome the master of the deep mountain whose weakness even Koromo hadn’t been able to find, but who’d remember that she was as fallible, as fragile, as the rest of them and she could think and plan and prepare and look and overlook but their match at the table tomorrow night would be what truly wrote the tale.

‘Right.’ And Saki inhaled deeply, and wondered if she was just imagining the flowery fragrance in that moment.

 


End file.
